Claire Beach’s favourite thing to do is travel – but as a postdoctoral fellow studying sustainable tourism, it comes with complications.
Beach studies how tourism businesses are lessening their environmental load, prompted in part by her own difficulty in trying to be a sustainable tourist.
Tourism is one of the world’s biggest industries – it comprises about 10 percent of the global economy and produces about 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It’s New Zealand’s second-largest export market, worth $12.5 billion to the country’s economy in 2025.
Beach’s research found New Zealand tourism businesses are facing challenges in becoming more sustainable – one company, for instance, has set aside money for electrifying its fleet of boats, but the technology to suit their needs hasn’t yet become available.
Along the way, Beach has learned a lot about what individual travellers can do to reduce their own impact.
Consider your niche as a traveller
Travel has a wide set of environmental costs – carbon miles, waste generated, resources use, stress on natural ecosystems. Instead of trying to address them all, Beach recommends homing in on one dimension of sustainability.
Focusing on a particular interest or value can help avoid overwhelm, she says. “Think about what’s your niche as a tourist, and then look for a certification that aligns with that,” she says. “I think that could be really rewarding to also open up new trip ideas for people.”
If a person is interested in active travel or slow travel, she says, they might focus on reducing the carbon emissions of their trip – avoiding short-haul flights and prioritising ground transportation, or taking a cycling holiday. Alternatively, someone’s highest priority might be supporting a conservation project, in which case Beach suggests searching for low-impact nature-based tours, rewilding projects, or volunteering initiatives.
For her part, Beach keeps an eye out for operators with similar feminist values to hers. “I look for companies that tend to have really strong social policies oriented around gender equality and inclusion,” she says.
Certifications can help – but only so much
“If there is a particular dimension of sustainability that really is meaningful to a person, they should look for a sustainability certification that aligns with that,” says Beach. “As a general catch-all, you could just look for B Corporation – I’m not going to say it’s the end-all-be-all, but it’s a good measure.”
Keep in mind that all certification systems have their limitations, adds Beach. Many internationally recognisable labels, from B Corp to Qualmark, are expensive to obtain – which can put them out of reach of small businesses. And sometimes certifications aren’t well adapted to the peculiarities of the local market.
“Certifications are a good shortcut,” says Beach, “but some of the ways they’re set up don’t really take into account local differences, so firms get penalised on random things”.
A little bit of social-media stalking goes a long way
Social media offers another dimension for travellers to vet the sustainability credentials of tourism operators, says Beach.
It’s increasingly common for businesses to have a sustainability page on their website; displaying environmental awareness is generally appealing to potential customers. But social media reveals whether those values make a difference on a day-to-day basis.
“If there’s a company and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, that looks really cool’, look them up on Instagram,” says Beach. “Just scroll through their feed. Do they post about sustainability? If every few months there’s a post about it, or you even see it in the background – there’s kind of a way you could do some due diligence.”
Notice how you change when you’re on holiday
“You have a different persona when you travel,” says Beach. “So if you see yourself as a typical sustainable person in your daily life, you might have a different personality and habits and behaviours when you’re on vacation – because you’re in a different mindset.”
People often undergo behavioural or values shifts when they’re on holiday. “There is a lot of research on something called moral licensing, and it’s like, ‘Oh, you know, every day I sort my recyclables, so when I travel, I can just do whatever I want, and the universe balances it out’,” says Beach. “So just being super green in your daily life does not mean you’re super green when you’re travelling.”
To combat this impulse, a research group called Low Harm Hedonism at the University of Queensland is experimenting with how to prompt more sustainable actions when people are having fun.
That’s because individual behaviour matters while on holiday, says Beach, like setting the air conditioning to energy-saving mode, for instance. “That’s where the big gains are in hotels – actually reducing that water consumption in your shower.”
Once tourism infrastructure already exists—once the hotel, lodge or home is built – the ongoing impact of it comes down to individuals. “As a consumer, it’s how far are we willing to go, because this is a collective problem, and it takes collective action.”
Identify the purpose of travel
Beach recommends people take a moment to assess the purpose of a trip – to consider how their requirements could most easily be met, and whether those goals could be achieved closer to home.
For instance, can nearby destinations duplicate the important parts of an overseas experience? “You have to think about, ‘Why do I want to travel? And do I actually need to fulfil this need, or can I do it some other way?’” she says.
Can a beach holiday take place in Northland, vineyard tours in Marlborough, or a lakeside break in Taupō?
In some circumstances, local destinations can’t compete with overseas ones, says Beach, such as when the purpose of travel is to make money go further, or to connect with a community or culture that doesn’t exist in New Zealand.
But in other ways, the at-home version might fit the bill, says Beach. One emerging travel trend is the rise in popularity of places that are quiet, calm and disconnected. “If there’s no wifi, even better, right? And it’s that we’re overwhelmed and overstimulated, and now we’re seeking out the opposite.”
Travel is inherently a costly exercise, both financial and otherwise. “The most sustainable travel is not travelling,” says Beach.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to stop doing it; instead, she chooses her trips carefully and intentionally. “Travel is transformational,” says Beach. “You go somewhere with certain expectations or ideas, and then you experience it, and you come away with so much more, just from being there and absorbing it.”
The world is facing unprecedented environmental challenges. Planetary Solutions, an initiative of the Sustainability Hub at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, and Newsroom, explores these issues – and the practical ways we can all be part of the solution.
